Now I have been trying to select something to drive them. I have narrowed it down to the

Emotiva LMC-1/LPA-1 combo orOutlaw 1070

Pros and cons, the Emo is rated at 125W into 8 ohms(225 at 4) all channels driven. The Outlaw is half the power rating at 65w into 8 ohms (no 4 ohm rating on web site), but it has a lip snyc delay the Emo lacks. So far I have only had one lip sync issue watching DirectTV, and it was solved by unplugging the receiver and restarting it. I had chosen the Outlaw at first and kept seeing Emotiva mentioned by many people. I checked it out and my jaw dropped when I saw the specs for the price. But I have to admit, there is a flag up with me right now, the Emo combo almost sounds too good to be true.

Right now I am leaning on the Emo since I will be driving the 4ohm M80s. I had been a somewhat concerned that the Outlaw would be a little on the lean side for power. I do not have the money for the 1070/monoblock combo. I do enjoy high listening levels in a vaulted ceiling room measuring approximately 16x20 and opens into the kitchen and hallway

I really like my LPA-1. I have no complaints and it's doing exactly what I expect of a good amplifier to do.

But do check out the forums over on av123.com regarding the LMC. From what I've read, it's a very good and solid receiver sound-quality wise, but it has had some 'teething' issues with some functionality.

There are threads regarding problems with the LMC switching surround modes when it shouldn't be, or surround sound modes not really working as they are supposed to. There was also talk about crossover settings not really working as people had expected in certain sitautions. I won't say anything more, simply because I can't remember the details off the top of my head. Essentially, the LMC is great but not perfect. I don't know if all of the issues have been worked out, but I have read a few threads over there indicating that newer units don't have some of the quirks of the older ones. YMMV.

That said, if I came home and found that my Pioneer AVR had died, I probably wouldn't hesitate in ordering a LMC to replace it.

Notice here, they state this was all channels driven @1Khz where as the Outlaw is 65W@ 8ohms 20hz-20Khz. Now, I dont want to start a debate on the all channels driven test, but this gives me a hint on how they can make this combo for under $1k, I knew there had to be something. I would still like to see a true all channels driven test for this amp. If it doesn't fall on its face at the other parts of the freq spectrum, then we truely have a deal here.

I feel the information presented on the Emotiva website regarding this product is slightly misleading....I am not saying they lied, they never stated full frequency sweep, however they definately omitted it.

I am also not knocking this amp, I am just trying to get the hard information on what these different amps are capable of so I can make an informed decision.

I asked Lonnie Vaughn at Emotiva about the 1khz power ratings and this is what he had to say:

Quote: The true power spec on the LPA-1 is 125 x 5 into 8 ohms and 65 x 2 into 8 ohms all channels driven with a broad band frequency response of 10-50Khz. From 20 to 20 the frequency response and power output is for all practical purposes completely flat and the amp will deliver the rated power across the band. Now the actual frequency response of the unit is from 10-50Khz @ -1db, thus the power spec can be derived from that as well, but this would just tend to confuse most people. To make the testing go faster in production, the Audio Precisions are set up to run a frequency sweep to very the power response is flat and then it just does a 1K measurement.

Any comments from the electronic gurus on this board are more than welcome.

Mike, if the statement in the quote is true that the power output "for all practical purposes"(whatever that means)is "completely flat" from 20-20KHz, then they should have done the testing under the FTC regs for the full range and simply published it as a 20-20KHz rating(as is typically now done, for all but the lowest-cost units), rather than only at 1KHz, which is the "official" rating. The present "issue" about the power could have then easily been avoided.

Personally, the 1KHz rating in that quality of a unit doesn't create a significant issue, since the output at 20Hz typically wouldn't be more than about 5-10% lower than at 1KHz, which is a trivial difference.